Vietnam Airlines Sucks Balls!
Ok, I'm starting off with some negative comments about Vietnam Airlines. And it is this..... they simply SUCK. They have no idea what customer service means. Bunch of communists I think!
Here's a play by play of bad domestic flights in Vietnam:
- Arrive at the airport in Hue and we are told that the flight has been cancelled and we need to come back in the morning.
- We are told that the delay flying into Hanoi is due to rain (I smell BULLSHIT here!) Flights don't get cancelled due to rain. It rains all the time in Vancouver and flights don't get cancelled.
- We later find out that the flight was cancelled because there are simply not enough passengers to fly. Great.
- Now I need to figure out where we are staying for the night in Hue. Vietnam Airlines says that they will put us up in a shitty hotel. Even better. A roach motel.
- I get on the phone with the Vietnamese tour company we booked with and after much yelling with Vietnam Airlines and the tour company we are finally allowed to go back to the hotel we had been staying in. They would split the costs. BUT wait.... our driver is now threatening to leave us behind because according to him his contract to drive us is done.
- So Colin decides to just load our bags into his van and sit in there until he drives us back. It was very tense now.
- I had to call the tour company again to make sure that the driver was coming back in the morning to take us to the airport again. Finally the tour company agrees to pay the driver for the additional driving due to the cancelled flight.
- Finally issue #1 resolved with Vietnam Airlines.
Issue #2 with Vietnam Airlines
I'll tell you more about our lovely boat trip at Halong Bay and visit in Hanoi in another post but this topic is about our gong show departure from Hanoi.
First, I'd have to say my fear about the Northern accent wasn't as bad as I thought. BUT it was still very tough. Just about everything is pronounced with "v" and "z" sounds. I have to ask people to repeat themselves all the time or tell them that I have no idea what they are saying because I'm not used to listening to the accent. By far, listening to the Vietnamese in middle Vietnam (Hue area) was much tougher!
So after our lovely trip to Halong Bay we drive back to Hanoi to fly to Saigon in order to catch our flight to Hong Kong. Our flight was set to leave at 7:00 am but of course when we arrive at the airport we run into more problems. I really shouldn't be surprised. It turns out that my ticket as well as Colin's, Kasztan's and Brian's tickets had been cancelled and the only person getting a boarding pass was Colin's mom Trish. WHAT THE F***! So I asked the ticket agent what the hell happened and she gave me some bullshit about not reconfirming our flight 72 hours in advance of departure. It's 5:40 am and Vietnam Airlines is telling us that we are S.O.L.
Talking to the airline staff was completely useless. From what they were telling me, the flight to Saigon was full and they just kept asking us to wait to see what they could do. Time was ticking and the time is now 6:20 am. I was about to lose it at this point. I stopped waiting and leaned over the counter and firmly told the ticket agent to get her manager out here NOW. I told her that we were getting on this flight in order to make our connections in Saigon and I didn't care who she needed to bump to get us on. Finally they put us on priority stand-by and we rushed to the baggage counter to check our bags. Of course as luck would have it, one of our bags is red flagged at security! Great! Turns out it was the snake & scorpion wine I had bought.
It's now 6:45 am and our flight was leaving in 15 minutes! The ticket agent was printing boarding passes for us to rush to the gate. But as Murphy's Law would have it the last and final boarding pass that she needed to print kept getting jammed in the machine. Shit, I just wanted to reach over the counter and give her feeble body a good shake.
Finally we got our boarding passes and ran to the gate. They find a few seats for us and we are finally on our way to Saigon! I'd have to say that speaking Vietnamese really helped us out.... and of course being a very squeaky wheel helps too!
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